Favorite URLs of Internet Marketing Gurus Resource Center 

From Web Analytics Guru Bryan Eisenberg: Eisenberg is a fan of this "concierge" site that organizes thousands of news feeds into hundreds of topics in 10 general categories, such as "People," "Tech," "Work," and "Sports."

Alltop ("All the Topics, All the Time") updates the news hourly so you get fresh content on your personalized "My Alltop" page. The Alltop editing team creates new topics all the time, using site owner submissions and reader input including what's trending on Twitter, as well as their own hunches.

The "Marketing" topic in the "Work" category lists the latest posts on Guy Kawasaki's blog (he is one of Alltop's three creators), plus new content posted on 300-plus other personal and corporate blogs, Twitter streams and news sites. That doesn't even count news feeds in the "Sales," "PR" or "Social Media" topics.

From British Conversion/CRM Guru Matthew Kelleher: It's not hard to see why "Get Elastic" is a favorite blog for Kelleher. The blog is the public face of Elastic Path Software, an enterprise ecommerce platform. But, instead of the usual self-serving corporate announcements and updates, you can expect a daily menu of fresh content covering every aspect of ecommerce.

It's written by Linda Bustos, Elastic Path's Emerging Media Analyst. She takes a practical, hands-on approach to ecommerce problem-solving. Save-worthy posts include keeping a "swipe file" of email headlines to spice up your own messages, and a jargon-free explanation of the differences between cross-selling and up-selling.

Pick No. 1 from Ecommerce/Search Guru Amanda Watlington: Note: This is not the gratis version of SpyFu we reviewed after it entered the market several years ago. This paid version, which Watlington asserts is "worth every dime" of the subscription price, is an impressively rich source of competitive keyword intelligence.

SpyFu Kombat doesn't just tell you where to uncover hidden opportunities and strategic market segments, or show you what keywords your competitors and their competitors are buying, or squeal on how much they're paying.

It also draws you pictures, graphs the data and shows you the money. "It's very helpful to show and convince clients that we need to expand keywords they're using, or why they're seeing the competitor everywhere," Watlington says.

Plug in three competitor sites, or test your own site against two others. Click "Fight!" and get ready to rumble. SpyFu Kombat slices and dices the data many different ways, revealing the overlaps and missing keywords in both paid and organic search that are, according to the company, "your biggest opportunity to pounce."

So, what does all this spying cost? At time of writing, subscription plans were $59.95/monthly, $395/annually.

From eMarketer Co-Founder Sam Alfstad and eMarketer Research Director Yael Marmon: They read this UK site daily to get what Alfstad calls "an international spin" on tech topics. The Guardian's Technology page has an excellent reputation for breaking tech stories that later get repackaged on other sites.

You get original reporting with a cheeky British perspective on tech stories such as a visit to Twitter HQ in San Francisco and interviews with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

Pick No. 2 from Sam Alfstad: Alfstad calls blogger/author Matt Mason "brilliant and truly subversive." The same can be said for this site, a companion blog to Mason's book, The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism. The blog chronicles underground innovations (the "pirates") and shows business how to learn from pirates instead of just fighting them.

One recent post commented on how a band was able to get United Airlines to compensate it after baggage handlers damaged its guitars. Band members didn't get satisfaction by going through corporate channels, so they wrote a song about the experience. It became a YouTube hit and provoked the airline to act.

Pick No. 2 from Amanda Watlington: This is a keyword management and research tool for search newcomers and experienced PPC/SEO marketers alike, available with a demo of the paid service. (Monthly subscriptions start at $300 at time of writing.)

Once you get serious about your SEO and PPC efforts, you'll find yourself drowning in data before long. WordStream makes you more productive and helps you generate and track the most useful keywords for your search efforts.

For search newbies, WordStream starts at the very beginning by suggesting keywords and keyword groups. Veterans will appreciate the nearly limitless capacity to manage and track keywords as well as a specific tool just for negative keywords.

From SEO/PPC Guru Christine Churchill: Don't judge this tool's utility by the 1999 look and feel of this site. Link Sleuth, created by German programmer Tilman Hausherr, is an excellent (and complimentary) link-checking tool that delivers a rich set of reports analyzing broken and redirected links.

Christine Churchill recommends Link Sleuth for its ability to identify "orphan" pages that might be left over from long-forgotten campaigns or site redesigns and which might still be sending traffic to other sites, unbeknownst to you.

Once you download and install Link Sleuth (PC version only), submit the URL of the site you want to check, and watch the program go into action. Before your coffee can cool, Link Sleuth will report its findings.

Reporting on orphan pages takes a little longer because you will need to supply your FTP data, including password, but you can bypass that and still get your link-activity report.